


The Ghost of Evenfall Hall

by downlookingup



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 09:42:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8440756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downlookingup/pseuds/downlookingup
Summary: There's something going bump in the night in Evenfall Hall.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt a very creative Anon sent me on Tumblr:
> 
> "Jaime and Brienne are married and Cersei's ghost is haunting them... like literally. Make it cheesy horror movie esque. Canon (show/book) verse because idk I'm curious to see how this plays out."
> 
> Hope you like it, Anon!

It began as soon as they arrived on Tarth. Brienne decided to hang Oathkeeper up in the Lord’s solar. It seemed wrong, somehow, to carry it around as if it were just another blade. It deserved a place of honor in Evenfall Hall. Jaime said there wasn’t a more honorable place than on the Evenstar’s hip, but he helped her nonetheless, passing her hammer and nails until the hooked mounting was securely in its place. He handed her the sword so she could put it up, and somehow the scabbard fell off and the black and red blade sliced through his little finger. Brienne stared in horror as he wrapped his hand in his tunic, now stained red.

“Seems my left hand wishes to join the right one,” he jested from behind a grimace.

In the end, the very tip of his finger had been severed. Hardly a debilitating loss, but it had put him in a terrible mood for weeks.

Things got steadily stranger after that. Doors banged shut around the castle, furs fell off the bed as they slept, fires would go out for no reason, rooms would be frigid at noon. It seemed to them the typical quirks of an ancient, drafty castle, or else the expected jumpiness of two soldiers after a long war. Brienne’s nightmares were beginning to stop, but it wasn’t strange to be jolted awake in the middle of the night by Jaime’s shouts. Once, she woke to find him sitting up in bed, staring into the darkness, talking to himself.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, before slumping down and falling asleep. When she asked him in the morning, he claimed not to remember his dream. Brienne wasn’t sure if she believed him.

After a few months, the servants began to whisper. The castle was haunted, they said. Whether it was the ghost of Lord Selwyn or of the people who’d died during the Targaryen invasion, no one could tell, but they were sure it was the only explanation for why the cook found every pot and pan on the floor most mornings or why the eggs would go bad as soon as they were gathered from the coop.

Brienne lied awake at night, Jaime’s arm around her naked waist and his even breath in her ear, wondering if it could really be her father playing awful tricks on them. He wouldn’t have liked Jaime very much, but she was certain he wouldn’t try to scare  _ her _ .

Jaime laughed it all off. “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” he said one night, pushing her back against the pillows and pulling her shift off. “And if there are, I hope they’re enjoying the view.” And then he dove between her legs and made her forget all about it.

The wailing began shortly thereafter. Always at night, always when Brienne was the only one awake. She would stand in the hallway outside their chambers, listening to the crying which seemed to come from everywhere at once. Two of the servants, a handmaiden and a stableboy, left Evenfall the first week. Three servants the week after that. Brienne couldn’t sleep. There were dark circles under her eyes and she was plagued by headaches. 

If Jaime was bothered by them, he didn’t let on, but he looked tired and irritable as well. He tossed and turned all night, sometimes sitting up and talking in his sleep the way he had at first. He never remembered his dreams.

On their seventh moon on Tarth, Brienne realized she was pregnant. She told Jaime over supper, and he dragged her off to bed to celebrate. Afterwards, she fell asleep, her back against his front, his hand cradling her still-flat belly. 

It was still dark when she woke, having felt a sudden chill in the air, and there, at the foot of the bed, stood Queen Cersei, glaring at them. Her golden hair was long, the way it had been the first—and only—time Brienne had seen her in King’s Landing all those years ago, and her white gown floated around her in the most unsettling way. But it was her eyes that made Brienne’s heart jump in horror: they glowed bright green, like flames of wildfire, furious and devastating. Even in death she was unspeakably beautiful.

Brienne shook Jaime’s arm. Her voice came out breathless and too quiet, “Wake up.”

Cersei’s mouth moved soundlessly, but Brienne knew what she meant to say.  _ He’s mine. Give him to me. _

“Jaime!” Brienne shouted.

He jerked awake. “Brienne? What is it?”

But Cersei was gone, faded into nothing like a wisp of fog. Brienne buried her face in Jaime’s neck and wept. 

She went to the sept the next morning and lit as many candles as she could on the Stranger’s altar. She prayed for Jaime and for the child inside her, and she prayed for Cersei’s soul, for comfort and acceptance and peace. She had done terrible things in her life, but it made Brienne sick to think of her wandering around for eternity, raging at things she couldn’t change. No one deserved that.

She was at the foot of the bed the next night, and the one after that, and the one after that.

Every morning, Brienne prayed to the Stranger, and every night, Cersei would be there, scowling at their sleeping forms, mouthing her demands.  _ Give him to me. He’s mine. Ugly cow. Give him to me. _

Septon Abelar told her she was being silly when she brought it up. “It’s normal to feel somewhat guilty for having survived when so many others didn’t,” he said.

“No, that’s not it,” she insisted.

“Maybe because of the babe. Her children were lost but you...” He trailed off, his round face turning red.  _ But you’re carrying Jaime’s child. _ Her stomach lurched as Cersei’s words took on a new meaning.  _ Give him to me _ . The babe, not Jaime. She wanted their child.

_ Never, _ Brienne thought.

She hurried out of the sept and went to the stables. She saddled her horse and rode out at a full gallop. An old woman lived in a cabin a few miles away. She came to Evenfall Hall when Brienne was a child, selling talismans and potions to her mother after she lost Alysanne. Lord Selwyn chased her off and called her a witch. Brienne hoped she still lived.

The cabin was dark and musty. Small animals of all kinds hung from the rafters, stuffed or dried. Brienne hunched so as not to touch them. The woman sat by the fire covered in dusty furs. Her wrinkled, translucent skin showed the webbing of the blue veins beneath.

“I need to get rid of a ghost,” Brienne said.

Brienne went to the sept that night, lit a candle to the Stranger, and hung the amulet the woman had given her around her neck.

“Cersei?” she called out. There was a tense stillness in the air. “Your Grace?”

Across the sept, a pew creaked, and suddenly she was there in her white gown, almost floating. She lifted a hand. The long pointed nails looked sharp in the shimmering candlelight.  _ He’s mine. _

“No,” Brienne said, firmly. The old woman had said she needed to be unflinching. “He’s not yours. Neither of them are.”

The candles on the altars went out. Brienne could only see the queen in the scant moonlight that shone through the stained-glass windows. 

_ Give him to me. _

“Why? I married him. I’m carrying his child. They’re mine.  _ My _ family.”

Her lip curled in disgust.  _ Jaime would never abandon me for such a creature. _

“But he did,” she said. “And then you died. You’ve been dead for years.”

The window above the main altar exploded in a shower of shimmering glass.  _ Mine! _

“Not anymore. Now, get out!”

The green flames in Cersei’s eyes grew until Brienne thought she could feel their heat. The windows in the sept shattered one by one. Brienne covered her face from the shards, but stood her ground. “Get out of my house, now!”

Cersei let out an ear-piercing shriek, and then she was gone.

The septon ran in with a lamp, followed by Jaime and some servants. Jaime gaped at the glass piled around her and the talisman around her neck. He wiped blood from her forehead where a piece of glass had cut her. “What in the seven hells happened?”

“Everything’s going to be all right now.” She leaned in and spoke into his ear. “I told her she had to leave. She’s gone now.”

He didn’t ask whom. The relief on his face was almost palpable. “Oh, thank the gods.” He kissed her and held her tight. Maybe now they could finally get some sleep.


End file.
